I Build Systems That Actually Work
Independent systems engineer in the Netherlands. I don't see software, infrastructure, video streaming and hardware as separate things. They're one system, and I've been making them work together since 2007.
- I build stuff that ships and keeps running. No hype attached.
- I'd rather ask the awkward question now than find out the answer in production.
- If it breaks Monday morning, that's on me. Which changes how I build things.
What People Hire Me For
I don't pick one layer and hope someone else handles the rest. These are the things I actually do.
Backend & Platform Engineering
Mostly .NET/C#. Background services, batch processors, long-running pipelines. A lot of my work is untangling legacy systems that got messy over the years. Event spaghetti, hidden state, things that fail silently at 3AM and nobody notices until the data is wrong.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Mostly Azure. Blob Storage, App Services, containers. Storage-driven workflows, reverse proxies, logging you can actually read when something goes wrong. I also spend more time than you'd expect getting caching right because bad cache config causes some really confusing bugs.
Media Streaming & DRM
HLS/DASH pipelines, manifest generation, DRM. Widevine CWIP certified with AION Streaming BV, picked up FairPlay and PlayReady along the way. Offline and persistent licenses too, for places where you can't count on internet. I do most of my debugging on bad networks and cheap devices because video always works fine in the office. It's everywhere else that's the problem.
Data Integrity & Automation
People send messy Excel files and CSVs and expect clean data on the other end. I build the pipelines in between. Validation, error catching, reports that someone without a SQL background can actually read. Heavy on SQL Server, CTEs, reconciliation queries.
SaaS Platform Development
I build the whole thing. API, database, web dashboard, mobile apps. Next.js, React Native, PostgreSQL. My own product Kassaba runs in 6 languages across 3 continents so I've had to deal with all the multi-everything headaches myself.
Hardware & Networking
Switches, Wi-Fi, NAS boxes (Synology mostly), domotica sensors and relays. Internet goes down sometimes and everything I set up should still make sense when that happens. No connection shouldn't mean no function.
How I Approach Problems
Boring Is Good
Clever solutions break at 3AM. Boring ones just keep running. I'll always pick boring.
Questions Before Code
I want to know what we're actually solving before I write anything. What happens when it fails, who's maintaining it in 2 years. Better to have that conversation now than after you've spent the budget.
My Problem, Not Yours
If it breaks in production, I fix it. When you know you'll be the one getting the call you build things differently.
Monday Morning Test
Demos don't count. Real users with real data on a Monday morning, that's the test. If it survives that it's probably fine.
Things Will Break
Networks go down and disks fill up and APIs return garbage. I don't try to prevent all of that, I just make sure it doesn't take the whole system down when it happens.
You Need Logs
Without logging and tracing you're just guessing. I put observability into everything because at some point something will go wrong and you'll want to know what happened.
What I Deliberately Avoid
"Let's do microservices because everyone's doing it." No. Tell me why first.
You've got 100 users. You don't need Kubernetes. Maybe later. Probably not.
If I can't explain how something works I'm not going to ship it.
I've seen too many things that look great in a meeting and fall apart the moment real traffic hits them.
I'll tell you when something's overkill. Even if it means less work for me.
Technology & Why
Who I Am
Been in IT since 2007. Started as a developer, worked at a bunch of different companies, kept running into the same problems. Systems where nobody owned the full picture and things broke because the people building one part had no idea what the other part was doing.
I started JeJa-IT in 2015. I'm Moroccan-Dutch, based in Vleuten. A lot of what I build needs to work across different markets, languages, and wildly different internet conditions. My own product Kassaba serves users from Casablanca to Amsterdam in 6 languages, which taught me more about real constraints than any architecture book.
I don't really separate backend from infrastructure from mobile. A slow API makes a bad app, bad infra makes everything fragile. It's all connected so I work across all of it. I got my Widevine CWIP certification with AION Streaming BV because the DRM world doesn't let you wing it. You know the spec or the video doesn't play.
I work independently because I want to own what I build. When something breaks I'm the one fixing it, and that just makes you more careful about how you build in the first place.
What Makes Me Different
- In IT since 2007, on my own since 2015
- Widevine CWIP certified with AION Streaming BV
- Built a SaaS product that's actually live with real users
- Fixed legacy systems people said were unfixable
- Backend, mobile, infra, I don't stop at one layer
- If it breaks, I fix it
Current Work
- Building Kassaba (property management SaaS)
- AION Media Group (enterprise video)
- Available for consulting
Let's Talk
If you've got something that's broken or messy or just not working the way it should, send me an email. I'll be straight with you about what I think. And if I'm not the right fit for it I'll say so.